Maker/Artist
Sandberg, Willem Jacob Henri Berend
Dutch museum administrator and typographer, 1897-1984
Born 24 October 1897; died 2 April 1984. Willem Sandberg studied briefly in 1919 at the Rijksacademie, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Between 1922 and 1926 he was involved with the Mazdaznan centre of Herrliberg, Switzerland. In 1927, he studied pictograms with museum director Otto Neurath in Vienna, Austria, where he also took classes in psychology from Alfred Adler and Karl Bühler. Between 1930 and 1935 he studied psychology at the University of Utrecht. In 1928 the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam gave Sandberg his first typographic commissions. He became Assistant Museum director of the Stedelijk Museum in 1938. After having been involved in the burning of the Amsterdam population register during the 1943 German occupation, he was forced to go into hiding. After World War II, Sandberg became the Director of the Stedelijk Museum (1945-1962) and wrote and designed most of the exhibition catalogues. From 1963 until 1968, he managed the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem.
